'Please, please, please': Man fatally stabbed by friend begged for his life, killer admits
As Jason Dirks was being beaten and stabbed to death by a man he considered a friend, neighbours heard the victim begging for his life.
Originally charged with second-degree murder, Shane Baum, 42, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Friday after a plea was negotiated between defence lawyer Adriano Iovinelli and prosecutor Sonya Bertrand.
In June 2018, Baum killed Jason Dirks, 46, a man he'd met at an addictions treatment program months earlier.
An agreed statement of facts filed as part of the plea provides details of the crime.
In 2018, Baum and Dirks would spend time together, drinking and doing drugs.
"The relationship between the two men was tumultuous, often involving physical altercations," reads the statement of facts.
'Don't hurt me'
During that time period, Baum didn't have a bank account and Dirks would sometimes allow him to have money transferred into his own account.
Days before the killing, Dirks accused Baum of stealing his bank card and withdrawing $800.
Dirks expressed anger at Baum in heated text messages.
On June 8, after being kicked out of his brother's apartment, Baum took the CTrain over to Dirks's basement suite and the two did cocaine and drank beers together.
Over the course of the evening, Dirks's upstairs neighbours heard two altercations. Around 10:30 p.m., he could be heard saying "don't hurt me, don't hurt me."
'Please, please, please'
Then, around 1:30 a.m., the neighbour heard Dirks begging for his life, saying "please, please, please."
The neighbour could then hear stomping up the stairs and someone attempting to kick in the dining room door which connected the basement and upstairs apartment.
She hid in a bedroom and called 911.
When she emerged, Dirks was in her apartment, dying on the floor in a pool of blood.
She said it looked like Dirks had been tortured because his fingers seemed broken and he had dark stains on his jeans.
As they waited for police and paramedics to arrive, the neighbour and her friend tried to perform first aid.
DNA evidence
Dirks died hours later in hospital.
The fatal injury was an 11-centimetre stab wound to Dirks's heart but he had also been stabbed in the arm, hand and wrist and had blunt force injuries to his head, neck, torso and limbs.
Surveillance camera footage shows Baum trying to withdraw money from Dirks's bank account from nearby ATMs in the minutes after the killing.
Dirks's DNA was found on the shirt and shorts Baum was wearing on the night of the homicide.
Police found blood from both Dirks and Baum on a broken shovel handle seized from the victim's apartment. The space was covered in Dirks's blood.
Court of Queen's Bench Justice Keith Yamauchi accepted the plea and the case was put over for sentencing until a psychiatric report can be completed in the coming months.
